Steven Seagal

I know that the man is pretty much the punchline to a joke nowadays, but I've recently watched his early movies. Above The Law, Out For Justice and Marked For Death in particular.

I was pretty surprised that these movies were actually good, well..good as far as your typical B-movie action flick goes. Seagal actually was pretty original for his time, he eschewed drawn-out fight sequences for quick, brutal skirmishes during a time where heavily choreographed fight scenes were the norm. I've noticed that a lot of action movies nowadays use that style.

It's just sort of a shame how he practically threw away his career after Under Siege. He could've been remembered as one of the greatest instead of a fat joke who barely does his own fight scenes.

Depends on what you mean as a joke? The guy is still trusted to do real life, no bullshit law enforcement, carrying a gun in the line of duty. Sure he may have put on a few pounds, or more accurately a few stone, lost a lot of his speed and stuff, but if I had to go up against him in a fight he felt he had to win, I am damned sure I couldn't beat him. Unless I got really lucky.

His film career, well, that is a horse of a different color. I tend not to watch his recent stuff, not because I find him risible or owt like that, I just prefer to remember him in his prime and slightly after.

Seagal movies did well in the early years in that it felt like he knew what he was doing, as opposed to (like you said) overly-choreographed fight scenes that looked crafted to hide the fact the actor wasn't really a fighter. His movies also relied on how creatively he killed the bad guy rather than how much punishment he took, which has its place. The problem was emblematic of that, he was so ridiculously efficient at dispatching enemies that it became a joke about his Mary Sue-ness instead of exciting.

Jackie Chan even did some comparison between Seagal and Bruce Lee, how both opted for more "no-frills" fighting instead of a lot of flashy moves. But he criticized Seagal in how people went down once and stayed down, while Lee's enemies would get back up so he could knock them down again. The bad guy got some determinator qualities and the hero had to at least work for his victory.

Well, he is a 7th degree Black Belt in Aikido. As seen here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Seagal

So it wasn't so much he couldn't fight. He just wasn't a karateka like Chuck Norris or a kung fu sifu like Bruce Lee.

I think the only fight scene in Seagal's career where he actually had to work a little for the victory was the final one in Marked For Death against Screwface.

Screwface even managed to bash Seagal's head against a counter a couple of times. Of course, Screwface probably got the most brutal death in all of Steven's movies afterwards.

From what I understand, Aikido is supposed to be pretty impractical in real life. It's only good in a exhibition or demonstration sense.

edited 16th Oct '12 3:40:17 PM by Kentok

I can't claim to really know the specifics but I think Aikido is similar to Tai Chi, both are more famous for the fluid motions practitioners demonstrate than for their effectiveness in a fight.

A casual google search suggests that Aikido doesn't train towards realistic combat and is instead very restrictive towards set counters involving the opponent rushing you. I've also heard that some martial arts circles don't recognize it as a qualified style or something of that nature. But like most anything I'm certain it has its uses and a skilled enough user can go with the best.

edited 16th Oct '12 6:24:02 PM by KJMackley

Well there is a reason mixed martial arts are recommended. Not all of them teach everything you need to know. I am sure Seagal knows about the limits of the martial art and probably has other training or at least enough experience from actual fighting.

But Chuck Norris was/is a good martial artists too. Does that automatically make his movie's flaws invisible? Leroy's actor was most likely a more skilled martial artist than Shonuff's but everyone watches Last Dragon for Shonuff anyway.

I guess I can understand if you are a big fan or follower of the guy that you may look at his movies a little differently but the rest of us without that vested interest are just going to look straight at the silly fights, silly dialog, silly plotting and laugh.

I know it's kinda fun to make fun of how he's gotten heavier over the years, but when I learned that he was apparently the first foreigner to open his own dojo in Japan, and that he had to defend it by defeating other Japanese masters, that solidified him as much more of a badass in my mind.

My dad and I were making jokes about how he's so badass, he can shoot out his eyelashes as a weapon.